


As Long As You're Mine

by Lady_in_Red



Series: Endgame [1]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Completed, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Episode Related, F/M, Resolved Sexual Tension, Smut, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-10
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2020-02-29 15:20:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18780919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_in_Red/pseuds/Lady_in_Red
Summary: After defeating the dead, the armies of Jon and Daenerys head south without Ser Jaime Lannister.(AKA the month when Jaime and Brienne were lovers at Winterfell)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title and lyrics from "As Long As You're Mine" from the musical "Wicked," lyrics by Stephen Schwartz, originally performed on Broadway by Idina Menzel and Norbert Leo Butz.

_Kiss me too fiercely_  
_Hold me too tight_  
_I need help believing_  
_You're with me tonight_  
_My wildest dreamings_  
_Could not foresee_  
_Lying beside you_  
_With you wanting me_

  
  
Brienne is on fire. The heat from her fireplace is nothing compared to the fever simmering beneath her skin. And if she was pleasantly drunk from the wine before, Jaime’s kisses have left her utterly drunk on him. Her head is spinning as he guides her gently down to the bed. She barely avoids tripping over their breeches, puddled on the floor.

Jaime. She can’t think of him as _ser_ now, hovering over her like a shadowcat deciding which morsel of his prey to devour first. His eyes are dark in the firelight, his skin glistening with sweat. His lips roam from her mouth to her throat, his tongue sliding along her collarbones, teeth nipping gently at her shoulder. His hand cups her breast before sliding down her belly and further to untie the waist of her smallclothes. “Can I?” he asks, voice barely more than a growl against her skin.

“I can do it.” She reaches between them, and Jaime swats her hand away.

He looks up at her, eyes flashing. “I don’t need help,” he insists, as if he wasn’t biting the laces of his shirt a few minutes ago. Perhaps the drink isn’t affecting him so much anymore, because the knot loosens easily, and his hand slides inside the linen just as his lips close over one of her nipples.

Brienne’s thighs instinctively snap shut on his hand, and Jaime grunts in surprise.

“Careful, I’ve only got one left,” he teases her, but it feels entirely different when he breathes the words right into her skin. His beard brushes against her breast, and she wants to arch into his touch like a cat.

Brienne shudders. She’s never paid much attention to her breasts, but Jaime’s mouth on them makes her squirm, restless and needy.

“You like that?” His voice is low and silky, and she can feel his smile, drifting up her chest, scattering kisses on her skin until he reaches her mouth. His hand is still trapped between her thighs. “Let me touch you.”

Brienne tries to relax, but she’s burning up and her heart is racing. The firelight reveals every inch of her body, bruised and scarred, with little of the softness and curves of other women. She knows what to do with a sword in her hand. Flat on her back with a man looming over her, she’s frozen. She _wants,_ his laughter, his smiles, his body, fashioned for pleasure as much as for war. But her hands stay at her sides, balled into fists.

His eyes narrow as he searches her face, and then widen again. Gently, Jaime wriggles his hand free, and brings it up to her face, his thumb rubbing softly over her cheek. “Brienne.” His voice is so soft, vulnerable in a way he rarely shows. “I came to Winterfell for you. I’m yours to command, whatever you want.”

“Jaime.” Her voice breaks and her eyes fill with tears, but Jaime doesn’t wait for them to fall. He kisses her, slow and tender and so achingly sweet that she melts at last. Her arms circle him, drawing him closer. Her hands roam over his back, across his strong shoulders and up into his thick, tousled hair. Brienne tastes wine in his mouth and salt on his skin.

He tastes her everywhere, even between her legs, until Brienne is panting his name. Only then does Jaime enter her, rocking slowly into her, kissing her through the discomfort until he’s buried deep, as close as two bodies can be.

Her thighs shake against his hips, but she ignores the question in his eyes. She feels impossibly full, stretched, but she won't ask him to stop. In this moment, Brienne would stay in this bed until the world ended if she could. And then Jaime begins to move.

It’s like sparring, she finds, but the pain is fleeting and the pleasure goes beyond anything she’d dared dream. And this time they both win.


	2. Chapter 2

_And just for this moment_  
_As long as you're mine_  
_I've lost all resistance_  
_And crossed some border line_  
_And if it turns out_  
_It's over too fast_  
_I'll make every last moment last_  
_As long as you're mine_

 

The next night, Brienne retreats to the baths. Winterfell sits on a hot spring that heats both the water and the walls, and the baths are her favorite indulgence.

It’s late, and she’s alone, soaking away the lingering soreness between her legs. Her inner thighs, gently abraded by Jaime’s beard, rubbed against her breeches all day, not allowing her to put the night out of her mind for even a moment. She ducks under the water, emerges and finds a cake of soap to wash her hair. It doesn’t take long, and she sinks beneath the water again. The silence is blissful. As a child, her father could scarcely keep her out of the sapphire waters surrounding Tarth.

Brienne has grown accustomed to being invisible at Winterfell, nothing more than Lady Sansa’s shadow. Podrick has made friends among the servants and the tradesmen, but they keep a respectful distance from Brienne. These northerners don’t understand her. They know she is the heir of a southron lord, her courtesies impeccable, but she is still a woman in armor, carrying a Lannister sword. The whispers that stop when she passes by have grown louder since Lord Tyrion’s arrival, and louder still since she vouched for Jaime. Most of those who fought and survived are leaving again, and the smallfolk remaining still call him the Kingslayer behind his back. To his face they say nothing if they can help it.

Today, she felt their eyes on her. Everyone, it seems, knows that Jaime spent the night in her bed. Podrick said that Tormund Giantsbane was actually crying, complaining to anyone who would listen how Ser Jaime came north and stole her away from him. As if she had ever been more than painfully polite to the wildling leader. As if Jaime hadn’t stolen her heart long ago. She traded it for a sword, and never even noticed until he brought it back with him.

“Washing away your sins, my lady?” Jaime’s voice echoes along the walls.

She can’t tell if he’s mocking her. When she raises her eyes to him, she half expects to see him as he was at Harrenhal, half dead with fever, filthy and feral. So long ago now.

The man before her is still bearded, still battered, still sharp-tongued. But his beard is flecked with grey, his eyes more lined, his stump hidden by the gold hand she has always disliked. He favors her with the ghost of a smile, there and gone fast as lightning. “You’ve nothing to wash away. Trust an old sinner to know,” he adds, moving closer to the edge of the immense tub she occupies.

“I wasn’t—” She doesn’t know what to say. The awkwardness of this morning still lingers between them. The night before was glorious, and she feels no shame about that. But she has no idea what, if anything, it means for them. Jaime was dressed and putting on his boots when she woke. He offered no sweet words, no affection before leaving her chambers.

“Do you want me to leave?” Jaime asks, hesitant.

Suddenly she realizes she’s instinctively covered herself, as she always does. On the road with Pod, sometimes she slept in her armor to avoid being left vulnerable in her sleep. With effort, Brienne relaxes her shoulders and lets her arm drop from her breasts. “No, we’ve shared a bath before.” A lifetime of modesty is not easy to cast aside.

His brows furrow. “No, I meant, do you want me to leave Winterfell? I wasn’t thinking, making you vouch for me again. Lady Sansa will never forget the things I’ve done to her family, and she doesn’t even know the worst of it.”

“You didn’t make me do anything.” She’s vehement about this. If anything, it was a relief when he asked her, in the hazy light of dawn, if Lady Sansa would allow him to stay. Queen Daenerys and Lord Jon would not truly trust him, not in a fight against his sister, he said. They would always question his loyalties, and his presence would only enrage Queen Cersei further. Brienne did not question his logic. She’d spoken to his sister only once, and the woman had seen right through her.

Jaime walks to the edge of the tub, kicking off his boots and shucking off his jacket as he comes closer. “I came to your chambers.” His fingers pick at the laces of his shirt, loosening the knot. “I brought you wine.” He reaches back and yanks the shirt smoothly over his head. “I tried to undress you. A more cynical mind might question my motives.”

The bruises blooming on his chest and stomach do nothing to mar his beauty. It’s unfair for one man to be so beautiful, in all his incarnations. “I undressed _you_ ,” she reminds him, her whole body heating at the memory. “And you needn’t… bed me to gain my support. You already had it. You know that.”

Jaime unties the laces of his breeches, lets them drop. His smallclothes swiftly follow, so he stands naked before her. Nearly naked. The gold hand, with its leather cuff and straps, hangs heavy from his right arm.

Brienne stands, sets the soap aside, and rinses her hands as she moves to the edge of the tub. Removing the gold is the work of a moment. Last night she was too nervous, too eager to get that reminder of his sister out of her sight to look too closely at his maimed wrist. Now she notices the bruises, the inflamed skin, the cost of his pretense of being whole.

“I don’t often drink like that.”

She glances up at him, trying and failing not to notice that his cock is half hard. “Neither do I.” She steps back, sinks beneath the water again. He doesn’t need to make an excuse if last night won’t be repeated.

Jaime steps carefully into the tub, sighing in obvious pleasure as he sinks into the steaming water and leans against the side opposite hers. Just the sound makes her want to touch him.

She’s seen battle turn men lusty many times before, in Renly’s camp, with the Starks, and here at Winterfell. Their rough hands and crass words never tempted her. Only Jaime. She’s no lady, never has been. Why shouldn’t she take what she wanted, if it was offered?

“Tyrion swore Dornish wine doesn’t give you a headache. He was wrong.” Jaime rests his head on the stone edge, his eyes closing.

“You missed the queen’s war council.” Brienne waited for him as long as she could. She was surprised to hear Tyrion announce Jaime’s intent to stay at Winterfell.

“I wasn’t invited. I was in the forge, helping to sort the weapons and armor taken off the dead.” He finds another cake of soap and starts scrubbing it over his chest, shoulders and right arm. “I’m not fit for much else except for sentry duty, and I suspect your Lady Sansa would rather shove me from a parapet than trust me to warn her of an attack.”

Brienne remembers Lady Sansa’s words at Jaime’s trial, and considers that he isn’t wrong. Perhaps she ought to share a few more stories with Lady Sansa. The bear pit. Riverrun. “Give her time. She will see that you are not your sister.”

He grimaces and rubs the soap up his throat, lathers his beard and hair. The suds are grey with soot and smoke. “She could simply count our hands and know that,” he snaps, and ducks his head under the water. When he emerges, Jaime tosses the soap back onto the stones.

“Aren’t you going to finish washing?” He hasn’t washed his left arm at all, nor his chest or that side. She can see soot smudges on his forearm.

Jaime aims a glare her way, daring her to continue.

She doesn’t want a fight, truly she doesn’t. So Brienne picks up her own soap and continues to wash. Her usual habit is to wash when she first arrives, so she can leave quickly if anyone else comes to bathe, but Jaime distracted her.

She can feel his eyes on her as the soap glides along her slick skin, up and down her arms, across her collarbones. She lifts first one leg and then the other from the water, soap bubbles chasing each other down her thighs.

Jaime makes a low noise in the back of his throat.

Brienne ignores him, gets to her feet and sets the soap aside. The lather on her hands will suffice. She risks a glance at him as her hands move across her belly, up to her breasts, back again between her legs. She stretches awkwardly to reach her back.

Jaime rises with a splash. “Let me do that.” His voice is gruff, his arousal obvious as he crosses the tub to her, reaching for the soap.

Brienne turns her back, grateful to escape the intensity of his gaze. So his attraction to her was not just from drink.  

His soapy hand skates across the back of her shoulders, and she shivers. The air is cooler than the water, and goosebumps cover her skin. His fingertips probe gently at a long, thin bruise, the flat of a blade, turned aside just in time. She remembers that blow from the battle, remembers he stopped it.

“I thought we were dead,” he says in the quiet, soaping her back in lazy circles, working his way down to the small of her back.

“So did I. More than once.” It’s not something she likes to think about, the panic and the terror, the regrets that clogged her throat in those moments. At least one regret she no longer need worry about. The Maid of Tarth is no more.

He sighs, his hand cupping the slight curve of her hip. “I kept expecting to find myself among the bodies, when we built the pyres.”

Brienne cannot fathom the horror of that, staggering through the day, moving corpses, wondering if he was really still alive. She turns to face him. Jaime is closer than she expected. His face is haunted.

“Let me finish washing you.”

Jaime shakes his head. “I’m fine.”

“I can scrub your back, and your arm.”

That is the wrong thing to say, because his gaze turns stony and he steps back, out of her reach. “Curse me or kiss me, Brienne, but don’t pity me.”

She huffs in annoyance and tosses the soap at him. It bounces off his chest and into the water with a splash.

His brows furrow. “What was that for?”

“I don’t pity you, Jaime. Although why I wanted to touch you, I can’t imagine.” She ducks down into the tub, rinsing away all the soap, and turns to climb out.

Jaime stands unmoving, his head bowed. She’s out of the water, shaking with cold and reaching for a dry cloth to cover herself, before he speaks. “You can touch me.” He hesitates. “I want you to touch me.” 

Brienne turns back to him. “Don’t do me any favors.”

Jaime’s eyes narrow, but he offers her his hand.

She eases back into the tub, and before she’s done much more than run soapy hands over his chest, Jaime pulls her into his arms. It’s some time before they emerge again to rush through the corridors, barefoot, their clothes half-laced, only to pull everything off again in her chamber.


	3. Chapter 3

_Maybe I'm brainless_   
_Maybe I'm wise_   
_But you've got me seeing_   
_Through different eyes_   
_Somehow I've fallen_   
_Under your spell_   
_And somehow I'm feeling_   
_It's up that I fell_

  
At night, Jaime is happy. The feeling is unfamiliar, like new boots not yet broken in. They’ve said no vows, made no promises, yet after a handful of days Jaime moved his few possessions out of the chamber he shared with Podrick Payne and into Brienne’s. He tells himself it’s because the squire snores and sometimes entertains serving girls in his bed. Pod has bedded more women in his time at Winterfell than Jaime has in his life.

But Jaime wouldn’t trade his nights with Brienne for anyone else. He’s not his brother, or Oberyn Martell, neither of them content with just one flavor of pleasure when there are so many to sample. One is long dead and the other is determined to follow a course that will likely kill him, so perhaps Jaime is winning there too.

Brienne is still very much herself in bed, skittish as a foal at times, hesitant with words but brave with her body. The trust she shows him is a revelation, something he never realized he needed until he had it. She never flinches away from his maimed arm, touches him there as easily as everywhere else. And when she forgets the unkind words too many men have branded on her skin, she is radiantly beautiful to him. After, while the fire burns low and the castle dreams, they talk.

Brienne is not usually talkative, but her walls are coming down, slowly. She tells him about her island, her father, the mother she doesn’t remember and the drowned brother she does. Jaime tells her about passing by her island, and how he’d wished he knew where she was just then. How it gave him comfort when he passed by again with his daughter’s corpse aboard the ship.

She tells him about finding and losing Arya, biting off the Hound’s ear, and how sick she felt later to realize they nearly killed each other trying to protect the same girl. Brienne speaks haltingly of being ambushed by Vale soldiers and Bolton men, of finding Stannis Baratheon broken in the snow and executing him for Renly. He shouldn’t be surprised. She killed three Stark men the day after they left Robb Stark’s camp, one of them with deliberate slowness. But now that he knows her tender heart, it amazes Jaime how fully she embraced a warrior’s life. For years he saw the faces of the men he killed when he tried to sleep, until there were too many to remember.

Days at Winterfell are harder. The Northerners still call him Kingslayer. But after a fortnight among them it’s mostly to his face. Some of them even call him Ser Jaime. _Lannister_ does not pass their lips. Ever. The gold and rubies on his sword are enough reminder. Any urge to throw his family name in their judgemental faces vanishes each time he sees Bran Stark wheeled by.

The should-be Lord of Winterfell spends his time quietly in his chambers, in the Great Hall, or in the Godswood. Jaime does not seek the boy out, but he can’t help noticing when Bran is near. There’s a certain stillness about him, as if time slows and stops in his presence. At least the broken tower where this all began was badly damaged in the battle and will not be rebuilt.

After some trial and error, Jaime has found work to keep him busy, and people whose company he enjoys, as long as the blacksmith lord Gendry Baratheon isn’t in his cups rambling about Arya Stark. The horses care not for his dark past, and he can still handle most of their care without much trouble. Sam Tarly, by rights the lord of Horn Hill and nothing at all like his father, sometimes asks Jaime to tell him about the reign of the Mad King. Tarly is working on a history for the Citadel, but the dragon queen won’t be pleased to see it, should he ever finish. Old Maester Pycelle certainly never committed Aerys’s crimes to parchment. Jaime doesn’t flinch from describing every lick of flame, every scream, every paranoid delusion.

Jaime isn’t obligated to earn his keep, but he can’t bear to spend his days idle. Useless. When the world is quiet, his mind conjures the streets he knows so well, and the battle raging far away to the south. One queen ready to rain dragonfire on the city, and the other already adept in the use of wildfire to destroy her enemies. How long will the city stand between those two women? How many will die? He should be marching south with Jon Snow, or on a ship with his brother. The certainty that Daenerys Targaryen would love to feed him to one of her dragons doesn’t change that. He’s never run from a fight before. Jaime Lannister has run toward them since he was a small boy with a wooden sword.

The children of Winterfell train with Brienne and Podrick on rare fine days. One afternoon, Jaime slips away from Tarly, who fell asleep in his chair with his small son in his lap, and joins them. The children are delighted to watch him die repeatedly under Brienne’s blade. After, Jaime bars the door to the armory and takes Brienne against the wall, her eyes wide in the darkness but her hands gentle on his back as he loses himself in her.

Tommen’s absence aches like a wound that refuses to heal, and yet he walked away from the child Cersei swore she was carrying. The child she said he could father, then snatched away the moment she needed leverage over Euron Greyjoy. Cersei has earned whatever end finds her. Their children were nothing more than pawns in the game she played, and Jaime loathes the part he played in that.

Brienne’s faith in him is humbling. For the first time in his life, he wakes every day with a woman without worrying who will see them. She is not openly affectionate around others, but her regard for him is obvious. And Jaime… he would kill for her. But late at night, when Brienne lies peaceful beside him and his mind won’t quiet, Jaime questions whether he can live for her, hiding in the North turning a blind eye to the carnage his choices have wrought.  

A fortnight after the ragtag army marched away from Winterfell, ravens arrive from the south and the west. Queen Daenerys’s fleet has departed from White Harbor, and Jon Snow’s army has passed Moat Cailin, leaving a small garrison as a last defense for the North. Snow’s message contains orders directed to both Brienne and Jaime.

_If Moat Cailin falls, take Sansa and Bran beyond the Wall to Tormund Giantsbane._

 


	4. Chapter 4

_Every moment_   
_As long as you're mine_   
_I'll wake up my body_   
_And make up for lost time_

  
Brienne wants him again before her heartbeat has slowed, before his cock slips from her body. Jaime spilled inside her again. They’ve become reckless as the days pass without further word from the south.

She never knew it could be like this, craving his touch, the weight of his body on hers, the sounds he makes. She’s still drunk on him, and when she goes too long without his kiss, his hand on her body, her head clears enough to wonder how long it can last. Her father is a good and loyal man, but his mistresses never stay longer than a year on the island before returning to Essos.

Jaime lifts his face from her shoulder and kisses her, slow and sweet, before rolling off her with a contented sigh.

He laughs quietly and unease makes Brienne reach for the furs. Then Jaime lifts his leg from the bed and she sees the source of his mirth. His breeches are still tangled around his ankle. He tries to shake them off, fails, and levers himself up to wrestle his foot free and toss his breeches to the floor.

“Better?” she asks, getting up and walking over to the pitcher and washbowl she keeps near the fire.

“Much.” Judging by the rustling behind her, Jaime is settling in beneath the furs. She is often a sweaty, sticky mess after sex, and he only looks rumpled. Appealingly rumpled, even. And he still smells good.

Brienne tries not to begrudge him the unfairness of that. A few quick swipes with a damp cloth clean away the thin film of sweat cooling on her skin and the sticky remains of his seed between her legs.

Jaime is watching her when she turns back. The shiver that runs through her has nothing to do with the cold and everything to do with the heat of his gaze. Perhaps they aren’t quite done for the night.

Thunder rumbles in the distance as she crosses the room and slides under the furs.

“Just like home?” he asks, gesturing to the blizzard falling outside her window.

“Tarth never had this much snow. We had lightning storms, though, especially in late summer.” She turns on her side so they are facing each other.

“Do you miss Tarth?”

Brienne hesitates before answering. She hasn’t seen her home since before she joined Lord Renly’s army. Nine years. She was so eager to prove herself, so excited to serve the man who’d been kind to her when no one else was. She remembers defeating Loras in the melee like it was yesterday. Renly, Loras, Margaery, Lady Catelyn, all there that day and all dead now.

“Sometimes,” she admits.

Jaime shifts closer, takes her hand. He likes to touch, and be touched. She noticed that their first night. “What were you thinking of, just now? Your father?”

“No.” She wonders how much he remembers of their early conversations, how he taunted her about her childhood. How much did Podrick tell him?

Jaime’s mouth twists. “Renly.”

She squeezes his hand. “Jealous of him, too?”

“No, of course not.” The response comes too fast.

“Jaime, he was nice to me when no one else was. He made me his Kingsguard. And he overruled Lord Tarly when he tried to send me home.” She drops his hand and scoots closer to him.  

Jaime wraps an arm around her shoulders, pulls her against him and drops a kiss on her temple. His fingertips draw lazy circles on her bare shoulder, and Brienne rests her hand on his chest. She likes feeling his heartbeat under her palm.

“Why did Tarly want you to go?”

“I was distracting his men. They were betting on who could take my virginity. A fat sack of gold dragons to the winner.” She can’t keep the bitterness from her voice.

“Bastards,” he mutters.

“I was polite, at first. Then I stabbed the one who snuck into my tent.” It was a small knife, but he got the message. Brienne never even knew his name. “It stopped after Dickon Tarly told his father.” She hadn’t seen much of Dickon in camp, he was only a squire in those days, but he was kind like his brother.

Jaime’s arm tightens around her, and she remembers suddenly that Jaime nearly died in the same battle where Randyll and Dickon Tarly were executed with dragon fire.

She could stop now, but she doesn’t. “One of the hedge knights came to me, told me how sorry he was for what they’d done.” She ducks her head under Jaime’s chin, so he can’t see her face. “He brought carrots for my horse and a beautiful illustrated book for me. He courted me.” She’s never told anyone this story. It’s too humiliating how well Hyle Hunt’s ruse worked. He was a plain-faced man with a crooked nose and a rich laugh. Not handsome enough that she would suspect him, not bold enough to try anything too forward.

“He wanted Tarth,” Jaime says with dawning understanding.

She laughs bitterly. “I let him kiss me,” she admits. “And then I overheard him talking with his friends. He said, ‘I don’t need a sack of gold dragons if I can have an island.’” He also said all women were the same in the dark, but Jaime needn't know that.

Jaime presses a kiss to her hair. “What did you do?” He knows she didn’t run back to Tarth.

“The next time I saw him, I let him think he could kiss me again. And then I pushed him into a cookfire.” She says it flatly, but at the time the look on his face had gutted her.

Jaime laughs, the sound rumbling through her. “I would have liked to see that.”

Brienne doesn’t laugh with him. Hunt’s burns were minor, his pride was more hurt than he was. And he earned even Lord Tarly’s scorn. But Brienne learned her lesson. Never trust a man’s pretty words.

Jaime’s right arm comes to rest on her back. “I don’t want your island,” he says softly. “Just you.”

Brienne knows he doesn’t need it. By rights he is lord of Casterly Rock, even if neither queen acknowledges his claim. Neither does he, for that matter. And his words are rarely pretty. Honest, brutally so at times.

She looks up at his face, so serious in the firelight. “I’m yours.”

They wasted so much time, pretending they weren’t tied to each other. She doesn’t waste any more waiting for his words. She doesn’t need them. Brienne pulls him down on top of her, kisses him until they're both gasping and desperate, takes what she needs from his body, gives him everything she has of herself.

He whispers something into her hair as they lie wrapped around each other later, but the words drift away in the night.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note to book readers: Yes, I’ve adapted Hyle’s story. I know this is not how it happened in the books. In book canon, Brienne’s first sort-of kiss was a soldier named Owen Inchfield, who she did indeed push into a fire.


	5. Chapter 5

_Say there's no future_   
_For us as a pair_   
_And though I may know_   
_I don't care_

  
The only surprise in Jaime’s summons to Lady Stark’s solar is that it didn’t come sooner.  In nearly a full moon’s turn at Winterfell, Lady Sansa has avoided speaking to Jaime. No more than a few cursory words passed between them, simple courtesies when she can not avoid him without actively snubbing him. Jaime knows she bothers only for Brienne’s sake.

Jaime has nothing against the Lady of Winterfell, but every time they meet she seems transformed. First a perfect little lady, an idealistic child who lived in her own dreams where Joffrey was a storybook prince. Then Tyrion’s reluctant wife, armored in courtesies, cringing from Joffrey when he drew near. And now, the icy ruler of the North, crafty enough to trap and execute Petyr Baelish, vicious enough to watch Ramsay Bolton’s hounds kill and eat him.

She sits behind a heavy desk that must have been her father’s, making notes in a heavy book.

Jaime does not take a seat across from her, preferring to stand. She must know he is standing here, but she doesn’t look up. Finally Jaime breaks the silence. “Lady Sansa, you wanted to see me.”

She finishes writing a line and sets down her quill. Her brilliant blue eyes flick up to take him in. “Ser Jaime. I trust you know why you’re here.”

He opens his mouth to say something cutting, something to put her in her place. Then he remembers Brienne. There are any number of reasons he might be standing here. Sansa Stark’s expression holds the same barely concealed disdain it always does. He shakes his head.

Lady Sansa stands and crosses the room. Ned Stark is almost palpably here, every trinket and stretch of wood adorned with his wolf sigil, his smug righteousness reborn in his daughter. She looks out the window and beckons Jaime to join her.

Brienne is in the yard below with Pod and a pair of Northern squires. Pod is sparring with the boys, putting them through their paces while Brienne corrects them. A faint smile curves her lovely mouth.

“Brienne is the most loyal person I’ve ever known.” Her voice is low and musical, full of conviction. “She had the respect of every man, woman, and child in this keep before you came here.”

Jaime hears the rebuke, and she points out into the yard again. This time he sees them, the pair of men on the far side of the yard, by a half-loaded wagon. They’re watching Brienne, arms crossed, sneers on their faces.

Jaime’s stomach clenches. “Men have always treated her badly. They don’t think women should fight,” he reminds her.

Sansa looks at him over her shoulder. “They never called her the Kingslayer’s whore until you came here. She vouched for your honor in front of the entire castle, and I believed her. If I’d known you were bedding her, you might not be standing here right now.”

“I wasn’t bedding her,” he growls.

She raises an eyebrow. She’s trying to bait him into an admission, of what he’s not sure. “There was nothing between you before you came to Winterfell? I find that hard to believe.”

He can’t say there was nothing, but certainly not what Lady Sansa implies. “Believe what you will, my lady. Brienne and I have not warred with each other since we were taken captive in the Riverlands, no matter who we served.” Only Brienne’s regard for this girl keeps Jaime where he stands.

“And who do you serve now?” The question is cutting. This is why he is here.

No one. Brienne. A part of him still defends Cersei. He doesn’t speak.

Lady Sansa leaves the window, returns to her desk. “You see my quandary. I have a small garrison here, Ser Jaime. I must trust every man and woman here.”

And suddenly Jaime sees what’s happening. The castle repairs, ignoring the interior courtyards in favor of shoring up the walls, rebuilding fortifications, laying in supplies to replace what the armies used. “You plan to stay and fight if Cersei wins.”

Lady Sansa nods. “I know Jon told you to spirit us away beyond the Wall. I won’t go. I won’t abandon Winterfell again. If I die, I die here, a Stark of Winterfell.”

Jaime runs his hand over his beard. Brienne doesn’t know about this plan, he’s sure. She’s teased him a few times since the ravens came, about Tormund Giantsbane. She thinks it’s funny, that it will never happen, and delights in needling Jaime about it. “You want to know what I’ll do if Cersei’s troops are at the gate.”

Sansa smiles, but it’s chilly. Perhaps the last smile Littlefinger ever saw. “Yes.”

Jaime takes one more look at Brienne and turns away. “I won’t let Cersei hurt her. She would, if only to take revenge on me.”

“I may need to use you, if it comes to that.” She says it without malice, he’ll admit that much.

Jaime thinks about that for a moment, and understands. “As a hostage.”

She nods. “Would you do it?”

He doesn’t hesitate. “Yes.” Bran Stark’s words are beginning to make a terrible kind of sense. _How do you know there is an afterwards?_ If Cersei wins, if she comes here, they stand little chance of defeating her.

“Do you swear to that?”

It’s an odd question, coming from her. As if she would ever believe his word. Slowly, Jaime pulls his sword from its scabbard, and awkwardly shows it to her. “Do you remember this sword? It was my father’s gift to Joffrey.”

Sansa holds her ground, to his surprise. She thinks a moment. “He hacked apart the rare book Tyrion gave him.” Clearly remembering that time gives her no pleasure.

Jaime slides it back into its scabbard. The motion is less awkward than it used to be. “After Ned Stark was killed, my father had the Stark sword melted down. There was enough Valyrian steel for two swords: one for Joffrey and one for me. I gave mine to Brienne. Would you accept my word if I swore on your father’s sword?”

Lady Sansa considers that a moment. “You won’t swear allegiance to me?”

He has a fleeting memory of ranting at her mother, while he was caged like a dog. _So many vows, they make you swear and swear._ “I’ve served four kings and a queen, Lady Stark. My swearing days are done.”

“Then I accept your word. I must ask for your discretion, however.”

Normally Jaime would balk at keeping secrets from Brienne, but this time, he agrees. He gives Lady Sansa a quick nod, and leaves her in her solar, plotting her last stand.


	6. Chapter 6

_Just for this moment_  
_As long as you're mine_  
_Come be how you want to_  
_And see how bright we shine_  
_Borrow the moonlight_  
_Until it is through_  
_And know I'll be here_  
_Holding you_  
_As long as you're mine_

  
Jaime feels no cold, no warmth. He barely touches his dinner. He might as well be tasting sawdust. Podrick and Brienne carry on a lively conversation, Brienne teasing him about a rabbit he once cooked long ago.

Brienne. Teasing. He wouldn’t have believed it a moon’s turn ago. She’s blossomed here in the North, a winter rose with the bluest eyes, the kindest smile, the gentlest hands.

And he can’t protect her.

Cersei shot a dragon out of the sky, ripped apart ships as if they were toys. The city is armed to the teeth, fortified with 20,000 fresh troops, well-trained if unfamiliar with the terrain.

Lady Sansa believes Cersei is coming, that their allies in the South will fail, and Jaime is inclined to agree with her. They defeated the army of the dead, defeated death itself, and one madwoman with a pet pirate could wipe them all out. The gods are cruel.

Jaime excuses himself, retreats to their chambers while Brienne and Pod stay up to talk. He sits by the fire, the promise he made Lady Stark heavy on his shoulders. If Cersei makes it here, Brienne will most likely die. His sister might keep Jaime locked away somewhere for her amusement. He can still hear the screams of the septa who followed Cersei on her walk of shame, ringing her little bell. The Mountain took nine days to kill her, and he played with her first.

What would Cersei do to the woman Jaime ran to when he left her?

He barely makes it to the washbasin, retching up the few bites of dinner he’d forced down.

Jaime tips the mess out the window, rinses away the remains, and finds his saddlebags. It doesn’t take him long to pack and hide them away again.

If he leaves, if he goes back to Cersei, there’s a chance. A chance for what, he can’t ponder just yet. He has weeks ahead of him on the road to consider his options.

If Jaime leaves, he likely won’t return. But Brienne may live. King’s Landing may not burn. His brother may live.

She won’t understand. She won’t know that leaving is killing him. She won’t know that he leaves the best of himself with her.

She won’t hate him as much as he hates himself.

* * *

 

Jaime is drinking when she comes back to their chambers that night. The captains of the castle garrison ended up meeting in the great hall, talking about the losses the army in the south suffered. They’re still hopeful that Jon Snow and the dragon queen will prevail. Brienne is less sure. Jaime’s reaction made her doubt that outcome.

He tastes of Dornish wine, like their first night, when he kisses her. He removes her armor quietly, with determination, swatting away her offers of assistance.

He only accepts help when he’s wrestling with his laces again, and Brienne takes over. He reaches for her laces, and this time she lets him.

The news from King’s Landing has upset him, that much is clear. She tried to ask him about it earlier, but Jaime said he was fine. He’s not. His hand is shaking as he pushes her back on the bed. He worships her body while the fire burns low, wringing pleasure from her with his tongue and his hand before he coaxes her to ride him. His fingertips drag across a small bruise his mouth left on her breast, and he calls her name on a broken cry when he comes.

Jaime doesn’t want to talk after. He just holds her, his hand running restlessly over her.

Something is terribly wrong. Jaime resigned himself to a world without his sister. The prospect of facing her across a battlefield has hit him harder than she expected. There must be more to it. “Whatever you know,” she finally says, softly, “will you tell Lady Sansa?”

Jaime kisses her shoulder, over the faded scar the bear left. “She already knows.” He sounds hollow. Defeated.

Brienne sits up abruptly, her heart racing. “Talk to me. Please. I lo—”

She doesn’t get the words out, the ones she’s never said. Jaime hauls her beneath him again, kisses her desperately. It’s too soon for him to get hard again, too soon for her to really want his hand between her legs again, but she doesn’t stop him. He needs this.

Brienne is nearly climbing out of her skin, balanced on the knife edge of pleasure and pain, when Jaime pushes inside her again. As frantic as the rush to this moment has been, he slows down suddenly, his thrusts long and deep. He kisses her mouth like he can’t stop, spills inside her helplessly when her orgasm hits her suddenly and nearly blacks out her vision.

Jaime lies heavy atop her longer than he usually does, his arms tight around her. She is utterly boneless, exhausted, the muscles in her thighs protesting.

“Jaime,” she begins, her mouth dry from panting.

He kisses her again, soft this time. “Sleep, Brienne.”

The look in his eyes convinces her to let it go for tonight. He looks better, more present.

Jaime rolls off of her, and for once Brienne doesn’t leave him to clean up. She curls against his side, her hand over his heart, and holds him until she falls asleep.


End file.
